Courtesy of Woolman & McGowan, Textiles.
Fig. 106.—Flax retting at Courtrai, Belgium.
What is rippling and retting flax? The next process is to remove all the seeds without injuring the long fibers. The machine for this looks like a comb made of iron teeth set in a wooden frame. This frame is placed on a cloth so as to collect all the seed as it falls. This is called rippling, and is done in the fields. The seed pods are drawn across the teeth which remove the seeds. Then the flax is bound in bundles for the next process, which is retting. This is really the most important part of all, for it means rotting the outside woody portion of the stem so as to get the flax fiber. This woody portion is of no value. The flax is sometimes retted by dew; just left on the ground at night. You know how wet the grass can be early in the morning. So the dew, rain, air, and sunshine decompose the outside woody bark. This is a very slow process. More often flax is retted in water. The bundles are placed in crates or boxes, and left for about two weeks under water. If you grow some flax, you can ret it also and remove the fiber. Do you know what takes place when the woody part decomposes? It is called fermentation. What have you learned about fermentation? (See Food and Health.) After retting, the flax is spread to dry in the fields and is then ready for the next process, called breaking. Just think of how many things have been done to the fibers of our linen towels and napkins and dresses, which we use every day. Jane Smith said she never realized before how many hands prepare our clothing and other materials.
Courtesy of Speyer School, New York.
Fig. 107.—Flax breaking done by hand.
What is meant by breaking flax? Breaking means removing the dry wood portion which has been decomposed by the retting. This is sometimes done by means of a hand break. In the picture (Fig. 107) you will see a little girl of Pleasant Valley breaking flax by hand. Sometimes the woody part is broken away by passing the flax between rollers of a machine which is run by power. These power mills are called scutching mills; scutching means cleaning and breaking. After this process the flax lies in long bundles of parallel fibers, something like a girl's hair as it is ready to be braided. The flax varies in color; sometimes it is gray or of a greenish tint, and sometimes pale yellow.
